


The Dust Has Only Just Begun To Fall

by resident_longwinded_anon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Poetic, Tumblr ficlet, light - Freeform, vivid imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 06:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3478109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resident_longwinded_anon/pseuds/resident_longwinded_anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's life is one of light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dust Has Only Just Begun To Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published over on [my Tumblr](http://resident-longwinded-anon.tumblr.com/post/112659475751/the-dust-has-only-just-begun-to-fall). This is pretty stylistic, and much more lyrical than I usually publish. Thoughts?
> 
> Title from "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4OLQB7ON9w))
> 
> Takes place before/during/up to the end of season 8.

Castiel’s life is one of light.

There’s the beginning, of course - first there’s nothing, and then there’s darkness, and then there’s light, and then there’s him. Light is young in these days, before sin is even a gleam in Lucifer’s eye. It pulses and breathes, it sings whispers in his ears. _One day you will fall in love_ , the light tells him, and Castiel laughs, because he _is_ love.

The light change after Lucifer falls. It becomes closed-off and bitter once he leaves, the same way the angels do after God disappears. The Lightbringer is gone, and so is the light, or at least the joy of it. It doesn’t dance anymore. Between the light’s absence and his Father’s, Castiel forgets what it was like to have anybody to whisper secrets to, and though the light shines, none of the angels are under the illusion that all is well.

There’s even light in Hell, Castiel finds when he goes to retrieve the Righteous Man’s soul. It makes sense, of course. Light follows Lucifer, wherever he goes. The light in Hell is alive in a way that the light in Heaven isn’t anymore. It fizzes red like soda bubbles and pops against Castiel’s skin, singeing him. _One day you will fall in love, Castiel_ , the light tells him again, fierce and bright as a peacock, violent like a half-demon. _Just wait and see._

Lightbulbs short-circuit whenever he’s in a room with the Righteous Man. It reminds Castiel of the light in Hell, loud and hopeful and alive. He never wants to see Heaven again.

The light in Heaven is old and crumpled like a stale piece of fruit leather. The light with Dean, on the other hand, makes Castiel feel like it’s the beginning again. He’s sinful the way a fresh apple was sinful, delightful the way the Garden was.

_One day you will fall_ , the light told him once, and he does, oh, he does. It’s long and slow, dark and painful. It’s seals and nightmares and broken bones and broken hearts. It’s the false god and the Leviathan, it’s guilt eating away at his insides the way the light of Hell ate away at his skin.

It’s death, more than once. It’s an empty space with a lack of darkness, with a lack of Dean.

He never stays dead.

It’s purgatory, where for once he is the light in a place, where he summons everything to him like he’s the antithesis of poison, like he’s the gateway out of here - and oh, he wants to be, he wishes he was.

It’s Naomi and mind control and Dean over and over again, Dean dead and lifeless and without light in his eyes, in a place where the light isn’t alive and he isn’t, either.

_One day you will fall_ , the light told him, but he never supposed it would be so literal. The light peels away from his skin like someone is flaying him alive. It sparkles around him and all the other angels, they’re falling stars, comets that are finally allowing the light of Heaven to live again. In days after the Fall, astronomers will marvel at the point eight percent increase of light in the atmosphere, but Castiel doesn’t care. All he cares about is the light’s goodbye. _The day has come_ , it says, _and thank you_.

Dean finds him in the middle of a field, laying on his back with his eyes on the sky, on his brothers and sisters falling and the light he loves finally fulfilling its purpose. This should feel wrong, he supposes, but instead it feels like the rightest thing in the world.

Dean sits next to him. “Hey, Cas,” he says softly.

All the light in Heaven owed the sky more than a point eight percent increase, and it would have given it, too, but it loved Castiel too much. He turns his head to look at Dean - Dean, who’s glowing with light only he can see. Dean, who is his. Dean, the fulfillment of all that Heaven ever wanted for him.

"Hello, Dean."


End file.
